Chris Damian
@CDamianWrites
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Following
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Media
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Statuses
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JD, CSMA. I write on Catholicism, (homo)sexuality, race, creativity. Occasionally mistaken for a theologian. Corporate attorney on the side.
Minneapolis, MN
Joined March 2016
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Some new engagement with this account. So a few things to note. 1/
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Learned today that the cops have been called on this homeless guy in front of
@BasilicaMpls
multiple times.
It’s Jesus.
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This is (unfortunately) a really helpful video to recognize when a man isn’t comprehending another’s discomfort. Look how he grabs her with both hands but she keeps her free hand away from him, how she keeps her body open while he closes in. If you see this, do something.
I’m here with Sister Mary Juan at the Casa Santa Maria, which is not only a residence for priests but also the visitor’s office for Americans visiting Rome!
@thegnewsroom
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You can't just say that "homosexuality" is a harmful concept invented in modernity that should be rejected, and then talk about how "homosexual acts" are condemned in the Bible. These are not logically consistent statements.🤦♂️
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Not so interested in the "premarital sex is good" vs. "premarital sex is bad" debate. More interested in how premarital sex is small fries when considered against apathy towards refugees.
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When I see Catholics do the “but pride is a sin” thing, I feel sad for them.
Life is so much richer when you feel free to celebrate how proud you are of your LGBTQ+ friends, family, and neighbors. I pray they find that freedom.
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LGBTQ+ Catholics come in many kinds. Some are celibate. Some are promiscuous. Some are in relationships. Some agree with Church teaching. Some don’t.
We *all* deserve better treatment from fellow Catholics. And from each other.
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Family friend: Wouldn’t it be better if Christopher… [homophobic comment]
My mother: God created my child.
😭❤️😭❤️😭
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I’ve been asked to give a parish talk on the topic, “Why remain Catholic?”
Soooo… For those of you who have struggled to stay in the Church, why remain Catholic?
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This year, I worked with a pregnant woman who was pushed out of her Catholic school job because she was not married. The only way she could have kept her job is if she would have secretly had an abortion.
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Yes, I am frustrated by a lot of nonsense in the Church. But also, I am "the Church," and you are "the Church," and I'm glad we're here together.
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Ummm we are aware that this dude has multiple allegations of sexual violence and has been described as a sexual predator by multiple women, right? One woman who spoke with the Times said she was a minor when he abused her. This choice by Barron is actually very confusing to me.
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I always find it weird when Catholic influencers post pictures of themselves praying.
Personal prayer has always seemed such a vulnerable thing to me, a most honest self-exposure, that I find it disorienting to see posed pictures of it.
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Catholic leaders say that same-sex commitments to love, care, and support one another, grounded in intimacy and affection ,should not be pursued analogously to marriage. But there are no alternatives developed or proposed, in a world where alternatives are hard to imagine... (1/)
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Some of you have heard about the disappearance of Joey Gloor from Word on Fire. Here's the backstory: sexual misconduct, employee intimidation, and disregard for victims at one of the country's most prominent Catholic ministries.
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Once upon a time, I lost my dream job because I was gay. Today, I represented a Fortune 50 company on an LGBTQ+ panel. A very happy
#NationalComingOutDay
and
#IndigenousPeoplesDay
, friends!
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The hard part of being a queer Catholic isn't just coming to terms with discrimination you've experienced in the Church. It's also committing yourself to a Church where you'll probably experience discrimination for the rest of your life. One of many things to grapple with.
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The clergy abuse crisis was not just about the abuse of minors by priests. It was also about how Catholic institutions insulated themselves from critique and change. The former needed the latter.
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Apparently there was a little commencement address recently, where women were told the most important thing they could be is homemaker. Edith Stein dealt with views like this during her time. They came from the Nazi party, and she hated them…
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“Twitter is real life for the people who are on it, but most people are not.”
🫰🫰🫰🫰🫰
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Check on your LGBTQ+ friends who went to Mass this weekend. Hearing from friends who had to listen to themselves be talked about by priests in dehumanizing ways. It’s hard on their faiths.
Prayers and support for those of you who had that experience.
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Here’s my
@wesleyhill
take: he is a caring person who has suffered a lot to get to where he is. He has made hard choices that run contrary to personal gain. And somehow he still responds graciously to critics and tries to have an open mind.
I want to be more like that.
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The problem when queer Christians respond to Christianesque attacks: those of us who could be theologians are preoccupied acting as apologists.
If we want to be theologians, we have to rise above. We need to stop justifying our place in Christianity, and start asserting it...
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My friend’s sweetest little boy is having surgery because multiple tumors were discovered. If you’re a praying person, please pray for him and his family. It’s the sort of thing that makes one question whether there’s a loving God. It’s just so unfair.
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Something a friend and I are trying to process:
How can Catholic parents responsibly send children to confession, knowing that for half of the last century about 1 in 25 priests was a sexual abuser?
And that the Church structured itself to hide this?
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I’ve heard of Catholics asking therapists: Will you uphold and defend the Church’s teachings in your practice?
If that’s the question, they’re not seeking therapy. They’re seeking apologetics. (Which should not be what the therapist is providing.)
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This isn't limited to one diocese or one bad priest. Alana was killed by ex-gay narratives that are systematically spread throughout the Church. I have 50+ examples. I'll share just a couple that I've written about publicly. (1/)
The Catholic Church must have an honest reckoning about conversion therapy and its deadly impact on LGBTQ+ youth, writes grieving parent Joyce Calvo.
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Edith Stein writes how one consequence of the Protestant Revolution is a devaluation of the unmarried state, coupled with a “brutal attitude” towards women that leaves them “confined to housework and to family.”
The great teacher Edith Stein has a lot to teach Catholics today.
Unearthed audio: JD Vance says teachers who do not have biological children “disorient and really disturb” him: “She should have some of her own [children]”
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This is one of my least favorite things among certain kinds Catholics. To look at the recent killing of a specific human person, an irreducible irreplaceable center of dignity and grace, and respond with a theological justification of justifications of gassing our fellow man.
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Honestly, I think this can be a strength today. We’ve seen the dangers of highly charismatic religious leaders. I feel safer and more at ease when I encounter clergy who are kind of boring.
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USCCB: It is immoral to remove functioning body parts because of a psychological disposition.
Saint Lucy, thinking her eyes are too beautiful:
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Pride Month can be a difficult time for many Catholics. My feelings about it have progressed over time, as has my relationship between my faith and my sexuality. I've spent 10+ years writing and speaking about being gay and Catholic. Here's a brief history of resources... 1/
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A lot of people don’t know that the U.S. Catholic bishops addressed affirmative action in a 1979 pastoral letter
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Someone else has already pointed this out, but it’s worth repeating. A grown man inviting teens to privately share their “personal stories” related to chastity is 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
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@FrMatthewLC
Gay Catholic here. I’ve struggled with how Church leaders have treated me. I respect you and have liked a lot of your writing. But I find this sort of response demoralizing.
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Another update: the victim did NOT share her story in a Facebook post, as was discussed in the WOF staff meeting. It was actually a private group chat. So Bishop Barron naming the victim in the meeting was outing her in a way she did not consent to.
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Apparently Pride Month has really helped drive devotion to the Sacred Heart.
So on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community: you’re welcome, Jesus.
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The museum staff noticed how much I loved this one and asked if I wanted a picture with it 😊
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Putting in a formal request that Catholic ministries not use my friends’ disaffiliation as a marketing tactic. Things like this drive them (and others) away. If you want to help promote the faith, please find another way. 😞
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Let's talk about
@frmikeschmitz
's next project, presenting the in a year Catechism, and how the
@USCCB
legally prevents anyone else from doing this... (1/)
The podcast's latest No. 1 ranking coincided with Father Schmitz’s appearance on an enormous billboard overlooking New York City’s Times Square in December and January....
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This is one of your own
@SFDiocese
. Could you please address this in seminary formation, so that black and brown Catholics aren’t told over and over again that priests don’t care about their experiences?
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The priesthood? 😬😬😬
What profession has lost the most prestige as a result of its members having access to twitter?
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A helpful reminder that religion isn’t just for privileged Westerners who use it to justify political agendas. For many, it strikes at the core of who we are, enabling us to transcend suffering and oppression, and reminding us that we were made for more than injustice.
Our Lady of Fatima has arrived in Lviv, Ukraine, from Portugal.
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This Father’s Day, thinking about becoming a dad, and how part of being a good dad will be
1. Protecting them from the worst parts of Catholicism.
2. Forming then to become the best parts of Catholicism.
Feeling very up for it 😊
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How are people surprised by this? This is a natural development of a mode of discourse that grounds Christianity in a soulless logical conformance to doctrine.
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You know why some Christian leaders insist LGBTQ+ people are sick? Because they view that part of themselves as a sickness. So there's nothing they hate more than LGBTQ+ happiness.
That's why we should feel sorry for them. Because they're trapped. We should pray for them.
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This was not how I had imagined ending up on the Word on Fire website...
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Happy Month of the Sacred Heart. Happy
#PrideMonth
. One of my followers painted this and gave me permission to use it in the logo for my IG account for the month of June.
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Everyone should be welcomed in the Church. But not everyone should be given a platform.
I especially worry when Catholic leaders quickly jump to spread the stories of recent converts, who put them on pedestals to preach and evangelize. 1/
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Many American Catholics are trying to remake a 1950s-style Catholicism in Catholic universities, while failing to take into account the structures and dynamics that made 1950s Catholicism so rife with abuse. It’s a weird reclaiming of history that relies on ignorance of history.
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… And the boss is like, “Just walk to work!” The next day, he and his wife in their car pass the employee walking, and then they look at each other and are like, “How inspiring!”
That’s how LGBTQ people are treated in the Church. (3/)
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So here it is. My conversation with the USCCB from a few years ago, when they refused to give me permission to build a project where millennial Catholics would share the catechism. (1/)
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“I like to tell people I’m a barnacle on the side of the ship—and the ship is the Church—and ain’t nothing getting me off.”
@gloria_purvis
Where my fellow barnacles at?
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And this is what happens when “moral theology” is prioritized over other areas of theology. A preoccupation with issues of sexuality leads to non-Catholic ecclesiology.
The only place where it seems theology may actually occur is in the "moral theology" course. It's also interesting that the one actual theology course is one focused on "morality" (rather than liturgy, systematics, etc.). It's a thoroughly modern and narrow choice.
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Some of you have seen the Ascension Press video Fr. Mike Schmitz did on “socialism” and Luke 16. Unfortunately, he doesn’t actually present either the Church’s position or socialism (or Luke 16)…
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What if the coronavirus killed 30% of kids under the age of 10? How would our American response differ?
That difference is what we call “ageism”
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Some things I wish the younger me knew:
1) Gay people are awesome.
2) Gay people do not need the validation of straight people to be happy.
3) Gay people are a gift to straight people.
4) Gay people are a gift to each other.
5) Being gay is a gift to you from God who loves you.
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Sitting in a bar waiting for a date to show up so thought I’d do some light reading 🤪
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When I came out as gay, friends responded with, “I never guessed you were gay, because you’re so Catholic.”
To answer your question, it’s because of the subtle formative messaging from Catholic leaders that being Catholic and attracted to the same sex is incompatible.
Why is it so hard for some Catholics to realize both homosexual relations are a sin & homosexual tendencies aren't a sin despite clear teaching on the topic?
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Starting a new annual Indigenous Peoples Day tradition: trying to end my Knights of Columbus membership
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The summer before you /
I thought love was Shakespearean, /
More or less a painful experience, /
Only ever real if you’re delirious.
New
@juliamichaels
album drop!
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For me, being liberated means that I feel, among other things, sad for Vor!s and Church M!litant. They are so obsessed with sin, and the wages of sin is death. I’m grateful to the people who helped me to step out of that world and find a new life.
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A lot of gay Christians grow up questioning if we are good enough for our communities.
Then we grow up and question whether our communities are good enough for us.
The answer to both determines whether we stay or leave.
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I want people who have abused to join the Church. And I want the Church to help them see what they need to do to take accountability, facilitate healing, and protect others.
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In its May 6 statement, Word on Fire accused me of lying on behalf of a "disgruntled employee." In light of that, I have received permission to share the full statement of another employee who resigned because of Word on Fire's treatment of victims.
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I think that a lot of what the side a/side b distinction provides is an opportunity for churches to distinguish between “good gays” and “bad gays.”
Both sides get marginalized in the process (including by each other), and churches get to pat themselves on the back.
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Word on Fire spent three weeks on an investigation, and it's been 6+ months since. It took me LESS THAN TWO DAYS to have multiple women share experiences of misogyny, sexism, and possible sexual harassment at the ministry. 1/
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There are a few things I’d say to the Word on Fire staff. Here’s one of them:
The victims are watching you on social media. Acting as if everything is normal. When it’s very much not for them. It’s painful to see that. It can make them feel like you think this is all fine.
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So you might see Fr. Schmidtz's new project and think, "What a great idea! Why didn't someone else think of that?" Well... someone did. The USCCB just took legal action to prevent them from doing it. (5/)
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To be clear: this is an example of a grown man exercising sexual conquest of high school girls
Thanks for your prayers this week. Two more high school girls asked me to trash their playboy paraphernalia after the chastity talk. Happy to oblige!!
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Catholic institutions more often than not systemically create and maintain the very situations under which women would want abortions. Dioceses, with their awful leave policies, are among the worst of US institutions in this regard. 3/
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"The false information published by Damian"
Does WOF mean the DIRECT QUOTES from a meeting transcript? Or the stories of the women who reached out to me?
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This isn’t to say that there isn’t a better way. But it is to say that much of mainstream “conservative” Catholicism doesn’t really get the problem. (5/)
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One of the things that irks me about this video is that it’s *her* office, but he acts with his body like *he’s* the one hosting her. I see men do this all the time.
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And I recently accepted an offer to be the head of procurement contracting for a global tech company.
Work hard, forget the haters, believe in yourself. I’m so excited to become a leader and lift up others. 😎🏳️🌈👨💼
Once upon a time, I lost my dream job because I was gay. Today, I represented a Fortune 50 company on an LGBTQ+ panel. A very happy
#NationalComingOutDay
and
#IndigenousPeoplesDay
, friends!
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... Queer Christians need to stop defending our lives, and start describing them.
We spend too much time explaining what we are not and not enough time sharing who we are and what we could be.
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If you're pro-life and a woman shares her abortion story, just thank her for sharing. That conversation is not an appropriate time to give commentary, offer moral advice, or share your views on the matter.
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From a bulletin for a Catholic parish in the Syracuse diocese. Spreading conspiracy theories and telling parishioners to learn how to use a firearm…
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I really believe that, if it weren’t for the Trump presidency and the movement behind him, a lot of my friends would still identify as pro-life
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As a gay Catholic, I love the TLM. But there are major cultural issues in TLM Catholicism.
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One thing that recent news has revealed is that Grindr isn’t really about supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Grindr *uses* the LGBTQ+ community for profit. In case this wasn’t clear before: it’s a capitalist enterprise, not a social services app.
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People may wonder: How can you still believe in the Church?
I don't think Bishop Barron when I think "the Church." I think about the brave Catholics who have come forward with these stories, the Catholics who chose to listen, the Catholics who work for change. I believe in them.
Some of you have heard about the disappearance of Joey Gloor from Word on Fire. Here's the backstory: sexual misconduct, employee intimidation, and disregard for victims at one of the country's most prominent Catholic ministries.
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The “ex-gay narrative” holds that homosexuality arises because of a core wound, usually an unmet need or trauma from childhood. This was the view of the psychological community, until it realized the theory didn’t hold up against reality. It's still the view of the Church. 1/
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As they’ve done in the past, we’re grateful to Church Militant for exercising discretion in disclosing the intimate details of people’s private lives.
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... This is like being in a world where everyone travels by car, and you’re told by your boss that you’re not allowed to drive a car but you still need to travel 5 miles to get to work every day. (2/)
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The brittleness of Tr*mp's "pro-life wins" is shown by how quickly they were overturned as soon as the next administration took office.
The wins were very short-lived, but the loss of respect and credibility to the pro-life movement remain.
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I think I’m getting frustration from others because they don’t want people like me to be a part of their Church.
Sometimes the “you’re not really Christian” functions as “do what I say or leave.”
Sorry, but you’re stuck with me. (Also not sorry.)
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Anyone yet explore the ways that “struggle with same sex attraction” can be a sort of pornographic performative show, done more for the enjoyment of heteronormative voyeurs than for the betterment of actual gay persons with full lives and whole selves?
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I try to be gracious with a lot of people who hold views I think are wrong/harmful
1. Because I’ve held wrong/harmful views.
2. The graciousness of others helped me on my journey out of them.
3. I probably still hold wrong/harmful views and don’t realize it.
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I used to be someone who would never own a pink suede jacket. Now I very much own a pink suede jacket.
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One thing to examine in the Butker fiasco is why he was selected to be a commencement speaker in the first place.
My impression is that he was chosen for this qualification: football player who is Catholic.
This is concerning, and contributes to cult of personality dynamics.
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Think about all the gay people you know. Statistically, you probably know twice as many bisexual people.
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If you could pray for a kid I know who'd been deployed to Afghanistan, that would be great. (He's in his 20s, but I kind of think of him like a kid cousin.) His family thinks he may be in Kabul. It's been a hard time.
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